


The Search for Sara

by kittygirl320



Category: Mills & Boon
Genre: Alternate Ending, By Royal Demand, F/M, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 21:18:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7523491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittygirl320/pseuds/kittygirl320
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the dukedom known as Illyria, the prince has his former fiancee held captive in his castle - the wolf's lair. He cancelled their engagement because he believed she was the culprit who stole the Queen's Blood, a ruby necklace surrounded by a deep-rooted legend. He still held her to that when she returned to remodel rooms in the castle as part of her job.<br/>However, when she disappears and the deceased queen's spirit appears before him, claiming she stole Sara in the night, Gabe quickly realises that the heart doesn't give up easily. The question is: will he be able to win his love back before the third day of his time limit ends?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Search for Sara

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first tragic story.  
> I just really loved this manga when I read it and thought to twist the ending since I really didn't like Gabe on the first read.

They sat at the dining table, opposite each other. The Prince of Illyria, Gabe, sat staring at Sara – the supposed thief as well as his former fiancée who’d stolen the Queen’s Blood – intently, hoping she’d shiver or nervously start up a conversation or _something._  
On the contrary, like she’d mysteriously started doing since that morning, she gave him an impassive look: indifferent, distant, far-off. It was that same emptiness in her green eyes, void of, even, the longing for freedom she used to have when she first arrived at the castle, and it was driving the prince mad. He was frustrated because he didn’t know what was the cause. That night prior to the morning when her mood suddenly shifted, he hadn’t treated her anymore coldly, with a sense of hostility, than he had when the necklace first went missing. So it couldn’t be his fault…could it?  
Throughout the meal they had together, she only spoke when spoken to; giving short, undefined answers, and ate very slowly in small bites. Gabe hadn’t thought it was worth trying to pry out of her where she was keeping the necklace when she was in such a state of mind, so he excused her to her room. She walked away from the table facing forward, not even a glance trailing across the room or back to him like most people would. Even though her face looked serene as she passed him, her expression unreadable, there was something in her eyes that made her look miserable, undisturbed.  
The prince was baffled and sat at the table deep in thought, contemplating, not even noticing when the table had been cleared.

His frustration was brought to an end the very next day, even though the problem with Sara had still gone unresolved. He was sat reading over some papers regarding affairs in the country when Maria, the maid, came bursting in, doors flinging wide open. She breathed heavily, her eyes, the irises’ colour faded slightly with time, wide as if she’d seen a ghost.  
“Your Grace, Sara…she’s gone!” the maid cried, face paling by the second even though her cheeks burned red, evidently from where she’d been running.  
“Gone? What do you mean, _gone?”_  
Confusion hit him like a tidal wave and his heart hammered in his chest. Had she escaped? The worry was quickly replaced with rage, which was quickly quietened by discomfort after what Maria explained to him.  
“Well…Sara, I thought, had been asleep for longer than usual and I had to do my usual cleaning in the room, so I…I went in – I did knock – after there was no answer. I started cleaning but then, when I turned my head, I…” her hands started trembling but she was determined to continue. “I…I was shocked when I saw nothing but empty sheets. What’s more, the window hadn’t even looked like it had been opened! How is that possible, your Grace?”  
“The window…Then how else could she have got out? No passage leads from that room, that’s why I put her in there!”  
“I don’t know, your Grace. None of the security cameras showed she was anywhere in the castle other than that room.”  
“So, she didn’t appear on any of the security footage and her only escape route hadn’t even been opened…Then how…?”  
Both stood there in silence. Maria stood twiddling her thumbs, nervous about the prince’s reaction, wary of him as his face grew thunderous.  
However, an even worse torrent of emotions whirled around inside the prince: where could she be? Was she all right? Was she taken? How could she have disappeared if it looked like nothing out of the ordinary had occurred inside the castle during the night? People never just disappeared…  
Suddenly, he pointed a finger at Maria even though he wasn’t accusing her of anything.  
“Have that room searched in depth. Make sure every single space is searched. She must be in there somewhere – hiding, possibly!”  
Maria nodded, gave a slight curtsy and scurried away.  
Hand cupping his chin, Gabe stared out of the window while two emotions battled for control of his mind: anxiety and anger.  
“Oh, Sara, where are you hiding this time?”

As it turned out, when Maria returned, Sara was nowhere in the room and it had practically been torn apart. Now anxiety was winning out against anger inside of him and it was beginning to show as the colour started to drain from Gabe’s face.  
“Well, where is she then?”  
Before Maria could reply, even though Gabe already knew her answer (that she really didn’t know), something unnatural arose. Preventing Maria from giving her obvious answer, a cloud of red smoke ascended from the floor. Both the prince and the maid stared over at it in shock: it had appeared out of nowhere, just in front of the foot of Gabe’s bed!  
When it cleared, a beautiful young woman was revealed and it wasn’t Sara. She had beautiful long fair hair and was fair of face, possessing a rare beauty, although there was something haughty and dangerous about it, something too ethereal to be truly heavenly and benign.  
“Wh-who are you?” Gabe managed.  
The woman chuckled.  
“Silly little prince. You are supposed to rule over this country and yet you are unaware of the legendary woman that haunts the royal family of Illyria…”  
“Legendary woman… _You’re_ the queen who first owned that ruby necklace?”  
_“Diamond_ necklace, _your Grace._ But thanks to those men, those diamonds do now look like rubies, don’t they? No matter, that is not why I am here. Rather than let you waste your time searching for a woman who is nowhere to be found, I am going to grant you the generosity of being enlightened.”  
“Sara? You know where Sara is?” Gabe asked, unsure of whether he should be relieved or worried.  
The queen’s spirit nodded.  
“I do, Gabe, I do know where she is. It was me that instigated her disappearance, after all, so I ought to know where she is. That missing necklace was all an act put on by Maria, as she has done through two generations of your family, to test your love for the young woman who was to be your queen. Since it never looks like the trial does anything for the princes’ future brides, only the princes who always get to keep both the necklace and the woman, I have set up a trial of my own.”  
In spite of knowing that Gabe was growing more and more frustrated with every single word that came out of the spirit’s mouth, she pointed a finger at him as if accusing him while putting forward a proposal. “Since it appeared to Sara that you were never going to believe her, I simply offered her an easier way out, away from this prison that threatened to cage her, as it has ensnared many poor women – future wives who have fallen victim to the traditions of this twisted country. She is in my world now, no heart in her body. She is free from the burden of loving a prince who holds her captive – a prisoner should never fall victim to the love of her jailer – and is now at peace in my world, well, as peaceful as she allows herself to be for this moment in time. A part of her soul still clings to this world, you see, and two worlds fighting for all of her soul has her in constant torment.  
“Now, to the matter at hand. I will grant you Sara’s safe return if you can find her. The world I was sent to is not completely unreachable by mortals – it is between the world of the deceased and the world of the living. You have three days to find her and convince her to return from my world before all of her soul becomes attached to it forever. She will not be in torment like me, doomed to never move on, mind.  
“If you succeed this trial of mine, you will have your woman as she once was and I am sure Maria will give back the necklace, even though it would be much better if it was destroyed.”  
At her explanation and proposal, it took everything Gabe had not to crumble. But, he had to remain strong.  
“So…if I succeed, Sara can come back?”  
“…If she wishes.”  
What a strange answer…still, he had no time to ask what she meant by that as she disappeared in a cloud of red smoke again, leaving Gabe and Maria alone once more.  
“Your Grace…I am so sorry, if I’d known this…”  
“That necklace is meaningless to me now, Maria, so no apology is required. All I want now is Sara’s safe return.”  
“What do you propose, then?”  
“A search party will need to be organised…I will bring Sara home if it’s the last thing I do.”  
Maria shivered at the dark look held in Gabe’s gaze even though he had no dark intentions. She hurried away as soon as she was excused anyway.

True to his word, the prince had a search party organised and had them search, leading most of the searches himself, through all of Illyria. He even went as far as to take a few to search elsewhere in neighbouring countries.  
However, that was on the second day and he was running out of time. So, he used the connections he had to have them search in their countries as well.

By the end of that second day, Gabe still had nothing. Where could the queen have taken her? He rummaged through his mind to remember what she’d told him: _‘The world I was sent to is not completely unreachable by mortals’._ If it was a whole new world, still unreachable to some extent, then it was something supernatural required to get there.

The following morning, the third and final day, Gabe searched the library for answers. When he finally found what he was looking for, he carried it back to Maria to check that it was the right source of knowledge.  
When she examined the contents of the book, looked up and nodded, Gabe used the book to pass through to the other side. Once Maria left the room, he laid down on the sofa, evened out his breathing, closed his eyes and fought to keep a clear mind, letting himself slip away as he drifted off…

He peeled open his eyes, astonished to find he was standing among some clouds. When he heard crying, knowing full well whom the cries belonged to; he looked all around, searching desperately. When he decided that he couldn’t see anything, he chose to follow the sound instead.

The sounds brought Gabe to a cloud-like tunnel and as he descended, the sounds grew louder and louder until…

He was in a room. It looked like one back in his castle and then he realised: it looked just like the room he’d given Sara!  
Raising an eyebrow, he took in his surroundings when his eyes settled on a figure in a corner of the room, sitting in a chair. Gabe was amazed to find two chairs situated in front of a bookshelf, by a window and, to his relief, he spotted Sara sat in the antique chair closest to the window, eyes red as she looked down at a book she was reading, lips trembling. Despite her tired eyes, Gabe still thought her beautiful: her long hair was swept across her shoulder in a loose French braid and she wore a long nightdress with the skirt made of a satin silk and the bodice made of cotton that left her forearms bare. It looked like the nightdress had a short satin silk cape attached to it.  
He approached her and halted just a few paces away, saying her name.  
She didn’t respond.  
With the knowledge he was running out of time, the urgency in his voice when he repeated her name made it sound more demanding.  
Sara’s head snapped up and her face fell even more, if possible, when she saw him.  
“What are you doing here?” she asked softly, although there was something bitter in her voice. It jabbed at his heart like a shard of glass.  
“Isn’t it obvious? I’ve come to take you back.”  
Sara shook her head.  
“I don’t think I can go back. I’m more suited for this world…it’s…I tore my heart out so I wouldn’t feel anything. If I went back, my heartlessness would make me a misfit,” she stated, more matter-of-factly than with an emotional element to her voice.  
“Sara…” Gabe sighed, walking over and kneeling down in front of her. She leaned backwards slightly, away from Gabe as if wary of him. “…The queen that visited you that night came to me a few days ago now. She said that if you returned, it would be like you’d just had a bad dream. You would feel again.”  
“What if I don’t want to? You don’t love me, Gabe, and I have nothing to go back to. As soon as Maria announced the necklace had gone missing, you assumed it was me who’d stolen it. Why would I? When I first put it on, when you told me the name of it, I wasn’t very enthusiastic about wearing it but I only did because you wanted me to.”  
Gabe was stunned by her confession and it only made him want her to return with him – _to_ him – even more.  
“That necklace means nothing to me now and it was just a trial that Maria…”  
“Trial or not, that’s not the point! I’m glad I realised your lack in trust before we married. It saved me more humiliation than what your cancelling the engagement caused me!”  
“Sara, please, just come back…”  
He tried to run his fingers across her cheek but she waved his hand away.  
“I’m not going!” she retorted angrily, louder this time.  
“Sara…”  
Suddenly, a clock chimed in the distance.  
“It’s time for you to go,” Sara told him, facing the direction the chime had come from, out of the window.  
“Sara, I-”  
The clock chimed again and Sara looked back at him, no emotion in her eyes whatsoever.  
“Didn’t you hear the clock? Your three days are up. Now, I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to.”  
“But I still found you! Surely the queen would send you back even if…”

Suddenly, that same cloud of red smoke appeared again until the queen was revealed.  
“No, Gabe, the deal was that you would get to keep Sara as your wife if you could _convince_ her to come back with you before your three days were up. Obviously, you had to find her first so that was vital as well.”  
Gabe turned his head towards the queen angrily.  
“You tricked me!” he accused.  
The queen shook her head in disbelief.  
“Can you believe him, Sara?”  
She, too, shook her head.  
“No, your majesty, he’s just as clueless as when I first met him.”  
Gabe’s heart sunk even deeper at her harsh words, even if he was focusing more on the queen stood proud and tall in front of him, although her appearance looked more dishevelled – exactly how you’d expect a queen to appear after being brutally mugged and left for dead.  
“It is hardly my fault that you missed the most crucial detail, _your Grace,”_ the queen argued with more poise than Gabe showed at that moment.  
“This will be the last time we see each other, Gabe. Just go,” Sara insisted.  
“I’m not leaving without you,” Gabe declared, still not taking his eyes off the queen, rather cautious of her as he stood up.  
“Yes, you are,” the queen proclaimed and before he knew it, she waved her hand and he was engulfed in darkness once more.

The prince awoke to sunrays streaming in through the window, seeping through his eyelids to pry them open. When he groaned and peeled his eyes open, despite being unwilling to wake up, he shot bolt upright when he found Maria by his side.  
“Your Grace?” she asked worriedly.  
He rubbed his hands over his face, sighing heavily in defeat.  
“I failed the trial, Maria…she’s never coming back, Sara is now forever lost to me,” he sighed in grievance, getting to his feet.  
Maria watched him leave the room, running his hand through his hair.  
As soon as he was gone, the maid muttered to herself, “Who’s Sara?”

 

~ THE END ~   

           


End file.
